A Project About Friendship And Music

NOTOPIA is a project to celebrate life. It is about friendship, about music, about doing the things you like to do, and about living your dreams.

The three friends behind the idea of NOTOPIA are guitarist Peter Alexius, drummer Sven Kosakowski and pianist Marc Mennigmann. We build the core of NOTOPIA, adding our friends as guests to complete our musical visions. All songs are instant collective compositions. We simply don’t know what will happen during a studio session, as there are no planned tunes to play, no prepared lead sheets, scores or chords. We talk with our instruments, have a conversation through the music that happens. And we always have a good time. As I said, this is about friendship and music…

NOTOPIA is an evolution of the SAM Project, a recording project Peter, Sven and Marc did with female bass legend Julie Slick in 2012.

Sven Kosakowski

Sven Kosakowski is a professional musician from Dortmund, Germany, who does his work with passion.He devoted his body and soul to his inner calling: playing drums. Sven’s trademark is his creative way of playing drums, especially the use of innovative sounds and outstanding individual style of play.

Marc Mennigmann

Marc started working as a musical chameleon over 30 years ago. After first steps on classical guitar he discovered his love to the piano and improvised music at the age of 15. He added the Chapman Stick as another main instrument, playing a wide range of improvised music, but always stays connected to his musical roots. Feel the Funk!

Peter Alexius

Peter Alexius plays guitar since the early 1990s. His stringplay is influenced by many known guitar players and artists like Adrian Belew, Bill Frisell, Mike Keneally, Neil Young, Frank Zappa to name just a few. The free improvisation without suffocating rules was always his native language.

Where can I get "Celebrating Life"?

You can order a digital version or a physical CD version on Bandcamp. The CD includes the digital download of the album. If you like your Apple universe, then you might prefer the version on the iTunes Store.

For our recordings in 2016 we booked some studio time at the Goldsound Studio in Hohenlimburg and invited Mike Keneally and his bass player Jaan Wessman. Further we got some vocal samples of bass player and rapper Divinity Roxx that added another sonic layer to our recordings. Prog luminary Peter Hammill joined us later with some vocal additions for two songs. German multiartist Mimi Ventura did the same and added her charismatic voice to one song.

From the "Celebrating Life" booklet

All songs on this record are instant collective compositions. We don’t know what will happen during a studio session, as there are no planned tunes to play, no prepared lead sheets, scores or chords. We talk with our instruments, have a conversation through the music that happens. And we always have a good time.

The only editing on these tracks were the vocal overdubs. No instrument was added, no solo was played new. Everything you hear is the first take and just happened in the very moment of the recording. As we say, this is about friendship and music…

Dear friends, we could use some help here.Sven and I have just launched our Patreon page of The Lab. https://www.patreon.com/the_lab We have a playground here for true creativity. Improvised music is the game. With every bar and note we play, we follow the universal...

We are happy to announce the NOTPIA "Celebrate" Remix Contest! On our BandCamp site you will find a free download the raw isolated recordings of every instrument on the song "Celebrate" of our album "Celebrating Life". No EQ, no compressor was added. No effects or...

During the sessions of the "Celebrating Life" album, we had Robert Vater joining us to film the process of creating something from nothing. Here is a video, that shows how something evolved from the void. The track was released as "Inspire" on the album....